


Blitz

by evienne



Category: Power Rangers Time Force
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Injury, Post-Series, Unexplained Backstory, dubious medicine, eric performs first aid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evienne/pseuds/evienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the structural stability of Silver Hills buildings leaves something to be desired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blitz

Wes shoved whatever had landed on him off his chest and sat up.

Tried to sit up. Something angry and _horrible_ tore at his stomach; the hand he instinctively pressed there came away wet and sticky. He clenched his teeth together and rolled onto his side. It was dark in the collapsed room, but not impenetrably so: he was beginning to be able to make out shapes—broken beams, fragments of plaster, smashed tables and ornaments. The air was thick and choking. He clawed instinctively for his bare left wrist.

“Eric,” he croaked, and coughed up a lungful of dust. “Eric!”

“Yeah,” Eric’s voice called back, sounding annoyed but definitely alive, accompanied by a shuffling sound. The dust settled enough for Wes to make his partner out in the dim light, bent down on one leg while he wrestled with his morpher. He muttered something and it was the Quantum Ranger who approached Wes a moment later.

“You hurt?” Wes asked, eyeing Eric’s right ankle, which looked odd even within the boot.

“Maybe broken,” Eric said, shrugging red-and-black shoulders like it was no big deal. He touched his built-in helmet earpiece, tapped it twice irritably. “Comm’s out,” he reported. “Must be buried too deep for the signal to get through. Which is a pain in the neck.” He glanced down at Wes properly for the first time, head tilting slightly. “Speaking of.”

“Hey,” Wes protested weakly.

“Let me see.” Eric crouched down next to Wes, hands unusually gentle as he moved Wes’ from where they were clutched over his lower abdomen.

“It looks worse than it—”

“It looks like you’re full of it,” Eric said shortly, and depowered to shuck out the contents of his jumpsuit pockets: basic first aid equipment was part of the Silver Guardian standard issue. He morphed again before stripping off Wes’ shirt.

Wes glanced down and then wished a _lot_ that he hadn’t.

“Just a bit of blood,” Eric said, while he started plastering things over Wes’ stomach. “Toughen up, Ivy League.”

Wes gritted his teeth together, closing his eyes.

“Hey.” Eric’s voice was different this time, his hand closing over Wes’ shoulder. “It’s okay. Hang in there.”

Wes opened his eyes, feeling his mouth twitch despite himself. “That bad, huh?”

Eric squeezed his shoulder—awkwardly, like he had no idea how to do it—and went back to his work. Wes stuffed his shirt into his mouth and bit down on it until it was over, and then glanced down at the hasty, uncomfortable, unbeautiful bandage above the waistband of his trousers.

“Wow, Eric, it’s perfect.”

“Shut up,” Eric said, though he didn’t put any effort into it. “Stay there.” He got up to evaluate their surroundings while Wes eased himself to lie flat on his back and concentrated on breathing in and out. That he wasn’t any worse he probably had the Grid to thank for: judging by what was already on the ground around him, he’d lost more than enough blood to pass out, and a non-Ranger would have been very unconscious by now. The pain was significant, but bearable. He folded his hands over Eric’s bandage and felt more blood bubbling out the edges. He tucked his fingers into the bandage, trying to hold it against him more firmly.

“Anything?” he murmured after a couple of minutes, trying to make the word flat so it would slide out with minimal effort. 

“Hm,” Eric said, voice sounding further away. “You want the bad news or the worse news?”

Wes rolled his head to the side to watch Eric’s dark figure. “How about the good news, my little ray of sunshine?”

There was a touch of Eric’s nearly-smile in his voice when he answered: “Well, Rangered up I think I could probably shift the stuff blocking the door.”

“See, that’s good.”

“But I’m pretty sure that I’d bring down the rest of the building on top of us if I did that.” 

“Not so good.”  

“Well, _I’d_ survive.” Eric’s steps came nearer until they paused next to him. “Which is what really matters. Do you actually _want_ to bleed to death? Which is fine, _I_ don’t care, but I hate wasting equipment. Why didn’t you say something?”

Wes peered up at him as Eric sat down carefully at his side, stretching his injured leg out, and powered down. He keyed something on his morpher and stripped it off.

“Voice code’s deactivated,” he said, dropping it on the ground next to Wes’ hand. His face blanched white briefly as he clamped both hands around his ankle, but his voice was firm. “Put it on.”

“No, man, you’re hurt too,” Wes said, pushing the morpher back.

Eric glared at him, hooking a hand around his right knee to give it more support. “It wasn’t a suggestion. Put it on.”

“Eric—”

“I’m not taking it back, so either you use it or the floor wears it,” Eric snapped. “I don’t need you to be a hero right now, okay?”  

Wes held his gaze a moment longer, and then gave in, reaching for the morpher. Eric watched him with narrow eyes as he strapped it on and activated it. Unfamiliar helmet displays glowed into existence before his eyes while he felt his heart accelerating, muscles tightening. The Quantum Ranger felt wrong around him: all dark edges and— _primitive_ , somehow, but the ache in his gut faded as the familiar power flooded him, and he felt like he could breathe again.

“Better?” Eric asked.

Wes nodded and plucked at the fabric over his chest with a smile he knew Eric couldn’t see. “Hope you laundered recently.”

“Shut up,” Eric said again, though he looked a bit less annoyed now that he couldn’t see Wes actually bleeding out on the floor in front of him. He rocked awkwardly to his knees, obviously trying not to favour his injured leg. “The morph’s not going to _fix_ you, you know, just buy us a bit more time. Can you stand?”

Wes planted a palm on the ground and eased to a squat, and then to his feet. It hurt considerably less than he expected. Like Eric said, morphing didn’t erase injuries, but the adrenaline rush helped you forget you had them, and the suit with its intrinsic interaction with the body was a better pressure bandage than one any doctor could apply. He remembered Dana Mitchell (or was she Grayson now?) getting practically giddy about that. “I’m good,” he said, once he was sure he wasn’t going to fall over again. He looked at Eric. “We’ve got to sort out your ankle if we’re going to get anywhere.”

“Used up all my strapping on you,” Eric reminded him, somehow managing to make it sound like it was all Wes’ fault.

“So we improvise,” Wes said cheerfully, and picked up his discarded shirt.

The end result (after much experimentation and expletive—not always in that order) was untidy but serviceable. Eric was on his feet, face still white, though his shoulders and jaw were set in determined lines.

They leaned on each other for a moment in the dark.

“Piece of cake,” Eric said at last with a tight smile. “You ready for the worse news?”

**Author's Note:**

> (I am sincerely beginning to doubt I even _can_ write anything without injuring somebody, oh dear.) Thanks for reading!


End file.
